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Friday, August 25, 2017

I’m sharing another one of my old recipes. I took a poll on Facebook, and this was the recipe people wanted to see. It’s one of my kids favorite recipes ever.

If you can’t find black mustard seeds, leave them out. It’s not a big deal… everything else should be easily found in any well stocked grocery store. One tip about spices: buy them in bulk from a health food store or whole foods. They are so much cheaper!

I use a lot of garlic. I recommend it, but if you don’t want to use as much feel free to cut down. If you are sensitive to heat, then start with 2 tbsp. of ginger.

I love this recipe so much! I hope you do too.

SIMPLE DAHL

3 tbsp. coconut oil

1 tsp black mustard seeds

2 tsp. cumin seeds

1 large onion, diced

10 cloves garlic, pressed

½ tsp. kosher salt

1 tbsp. ground coriander

2 tbsp. curry powder

½ tsp. turmeric

¼ tsp. cinnamon

2-4 tbsp. freshly chopped ginger

1 lb. red lentils

4-6 cups vegetable broth (I use better than bouillon)

1 cup chopped cilantro

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp. toasted sesame oil

Braggs or Soy Sauce to taste

1 cup chopped, fresh tomatoes

4 tbsp. diced, raw red onion

1 lime, cut into 8 pieces

Method:

In a heavy bottom 4 qt. pan over medium heat, add the oil, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the onion and garlic along with the salt. Cook for around 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent.

Add the rest of the spices and toast with the onion mixture for around 1 minute, then add the ginger, lentils and broth (start with 4 cups)

Bring to a simmer, lower heat and cook for around 30 minutes, adding more broth if needed.

When lentils are cooked, stir in the cilantro, lemon juice and zest, sesame oil, and season with Braggs or soy sauce.

Serve over basmati rice and top with fresh tomatoes, raw onion, and a wedge of lime.

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Friday, August 18, 2017

I am going to be sharing a recipe every Thursday! It's only fitting that I will share the very first recipe I ever posted online, way back in May 2006 on my MeloMeals blog! This was always a huge hit in my World Vegetarian cooking class I taught when I lived in Portsmouth, NH. There are a lot of ingredients in this dish, and they all bring something to the table. People are usually shocked by the amount of garlic and spices I use, but trust me - this is how you make vegan food good. No bland or boring food here!

Groundnut Stew – Serves 8

4 tbsp. coconut oil

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tbsp. coriander

1 tbsp. cumin seeds

½ tsp. crushed, dried rosemary

¼ tsp. ground coriander

¼ tsp. ground nutmeg

¼ tsp. allspice

2 onion, chopped (around 2 cups)

1-2 Serrano chilies, chopped

10 cloves garlic, minced

1 each: green, red, yellow bell pepper, chopped

2 medium sweet potatoes diced (around 4 cups)

1 large carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

½ tsp. kosher salt

1 qt. vegetable broth or 4 cups water mixed with bouillon

28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 29 oz. can kidney beans (or around 3 cups cooked beans)

Water if needed

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

Salt/pepper to taste

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 tbsp. fresh thyme

2 tbsp. fresh basil

Juice of 3 limes

Hot sauce and Bragg’s or Soy Sauce to taste

Method:

In a very large, heavy bottom Dutch oven, or stew pot heat oil over medium heat. Add the spices and vegetables, along with the salt and sauté for around 10 minutes. Make sure to stir the mixture well.

Stir in broth, tomatoes peanut butter, and beans and bring to a simmer.

Cover, and cook for around 30 minutes, stirring every now and then. You may or may not need to add some water.

When the sweet potatoes are cooked through, add the onion and garlic powder, cilantro, thyme, basil, and lime juice.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

In my cooking class, Vegan 101: The System, one of the things I will be teaching is how to make a simple, NO COOK (unless you count boiling water) veggie burger base that can be turned into meatballs and veggie meatloaf!

Date: August 27

Time: 1-5 pm

Place: Holbrook, MA

Cost: $125

Here's what people are saying about this class:

Local friends, if you are looking to massively level up your plant based cooking, Melody Polakow is *the* person to learn from - she makes the most inspired, delicious, satisfying vegan food I have ever come across. - Andrea, Boston, MA

I can whole heartedly second Andrea's testimonial about Melody -- we recently did a private cooking class with Melody -- it was totally amazing -- I was about to give up on going Vegan as I had almost begun to dread eating -- in the class with Melody I learned to make several "master sauces" and applied them to a few recipes -- and they were fantastic -- tasty, well spiced and filling. Take the class -- you will be happy you did. - Penny, Boston, MA

Yes indeed. Melody Polakow's class is awesome. I love being vegan, but I didn't feel like I had the tools. Now, we have the basis for a bunch of sauces. We know how to create "cheese flavoring" sauces that work with everything. Amazing "meat" to make meatloaf, hamburgers, meatballs and so forth. Some core ingredients to use.. Comfort with using my Instant Pot, etc.

We crammed more in to this class then I thought possible. It felt like we learned 3 class fulls in one class. We were all exhausted, but happy at the end. Had a delicious "meatball" sub to celebrate and a refrigerator full of food.

Friday, June 30, 2017

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

It's kind of amazing that three simple ingredients can work so well together it feels like you are drinking dessert. (four if you count the stevia). This lovely little smoothie had frozen watermelon, frozen banana (rations 3:1), lime juice, and a very scant scoop of Kal stevia.

Sunday, April 02, 2017

Clean out the fridge meals are a regular in my house. Those of you who used to read this blog years ago probably remember my method of having three sauces, two cooked legumes, and two cooked grains on hand. I still do that! My freezer always has cooked individual size portions of cooked grains and legumes, and my fridge is stocked with and abundance of homemade sauces. (Seriously, I make a new sauce at least 3 or 4 times a week during recipe testing for MeloMeals.)

So, onto this meal. I had some red peppers I wanted to use and some cooked lentils, so I sauteed up some onion, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, smoked paprika along with a bay leaf for around 10 minutes, I deglazed with red wine vinegar and tomatoes and added raisins, green olives, and the olive brine. I filled the peppers with the mixture and popped them in my air fryer for around 15 minutes or so. I topped the peppers with my homemade vegan feta, and some pico. I added a bit of fresh marjoram to the pico, and wowza guys! It was amazing. So simple, so delicious, and so healthy.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Hidden under the greens are noodles made of Daikon! I dry fried the tofu, then cooked the daikon/tofu in a red curry sauce I made a while back with some coconut milk (the drinkable kind from the carton) and peanut butter.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

I get so excited when I score Scotch Bonnets! Habaneros are easy to find, but these babies are elusive. When we went to Jamaica, I fell in love with the sauce at a little roadside place and have been re-creating it every time I am lucky enough to get my hand on these firey, floral little gems.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

I am always looking for ways to improve upon my recipes, and even though I like my gluten-free and vegan pizza, it's still fun to experiment. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the pizza after baking, because I burnt it almost beyond recognition. There were small edible pieces, and from the taste of them, this pizza would have been amazing. Fortunately, this was only a small pizza for one.

homemade vegan sunflower-soy mozzarella, shrooms, pepper, onions

I made the cheese out of sunflower seeds and tofu. So many people are allergic to tree nuts that I'm experimenting again with sunflower seeds for cheesemaking. I pulled out some of my old cheese recipes from 2006 and tweaked them a bit.

Sunflower-Soy cheese before baking

Fortunately, I have access to commercial pizza ovens, so I'm going to make another batch of cheese and dough (and sauce) and bake one up there. I will report back!

Sunday, March 12, 2017

It's so cold! Fortunately, my slow cooker has been at work at home while I was away, cooking for work. I normally make this on the stove, but decided to test it in the crockpot.

Daikon, carrots, potatoes, chickpeas in a savory Asian Fusion gravy is so delicious.The original recipe was born out of me attempting to recreate the Japanese Beef Curry my BF loves. I knew that I didn't want to try to replicate beef, but I love how the chickpea liquid gels when you cook them from scratch, so I knew chickpeas would be a great substitution. And they are! The chickpea liquid coats the veggies in a similar way that meat gelatin does (or so I'm told, I have never really eaten meat, but The Boyfriend confirmed this.) This is such a warming stew; perfect for the weather, but not nearly as heavy as a full potato based stew is.

I love being inspired to create the foods I love to eat in restaurants at home. For some reason, today feels like Saturday even though it's Thursday, and I have some free time, so let the cooking begin!